It’s a new age. We all feel it. The gap between each generation now seems larger than ever before.
In rapid succession over the last 3 decades it got easier to talk to people on the other side of the world.
The World Wide Web launched in 1991; Google welcomed itself into the first homes in 1998; Facebook in 2004.
This means that there’s young adults that don’t remember a time where they couldn’t immediately speak to someone on the opposite side of the world, from a completely different culture.
But what does that have to do with changing consciousness?
In our grandparents days the media had it very easy to indoctrinate it’s citizens with who to hate; who our nations enemies are; what ethnicities we should judge as dangerous.
But we’re the generation coming through that hears our parents bigoted sayings about other cultures and instead of immediately adopting it as gospel, we question it. We question everything.
Everything can be researched at the tap of a button so why would we take the ramblings of an adult that grew up before the internet as truthful?
They grew up before being this connected.
Why should I feel disconnected to another person just because they’re typing to me from a country that my parents once hated? Are we not all just young hopeful humans, confused about the ways of the world, and taking it one day at a time? Isn’t that what everyone on this planet is doing?
Does the soil you first touch after exiting the womb truly make you an enemy to me?
It seems unlikely.
Is my life any more important simply because it’s in my head?
Am I not a spiritual being walking around in a meat suit for 100 spins around the sun?
Speaking of meat suit, the global animal rights movement is proof of people’s changing outlook on how we see other lives.
Does my life have more meaning to my body than my dogs life has to it’s body?
Does a cows life mean less to it than my life means to me?
These are the questions people are asking themselves.
We’ve seen the atrocities being done to others on the name of necessity whether it be for food, or to “keep us safe,” and we’ve figured out that there’s been a blindfold over our eyes for far too long.
You can see it in the growing number of people following social media pages about mindfulness, meditation, spirituality, and the basic rights of oppressed sectors of community.
People are feeling more equal to others than ever before.
You can see the growing people craving getting away from the system by the amount of people going ‘off grid.’
A movement of people wanting to live off the land and the fruits and vegetables that they grow by themselves or with a small community.
They worry about the lies they’ve been told about what pesticides and herbicides are doing to their body; they get tired of searching for truth through misinformation; thus, eventually dodge it entirely and start from scratch with a better connection to what they’re putting into their bodies.
It was Gandhi that said, “The Earth provides enough for every man’s needs. But not every man’s greed.”
He also said, “You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with what to do in life in a society that you don’t fully agree with.
But here’s what I take from these quotes.
You can’t change the world, you can only change yourself.
Keep becoming a better version of yourself. Be mindful. Be present. Don’t dwell on the past. Don’t stress about the future.
Be here now and be a good part of this society. A part that doesn’t dirty the ocean.
You’re an individual, but you’re also connected to every life on this planet.
Remember that.
Author: Daniel Hansen
Vic, from England, and Dan, from Australia. We are a loving couple, mid twenties, travelling central and south America and setting ourselves up to start a self sustainable community on the east coast of Australia in the next few years.
We’re here to make friends and learn things.
Cheers!
